


if there was one thing I could save from the fire

by zauberer_sirin



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Movie(s), Spoilers, Working My Feelings Through Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-06
Updated: 2012-05-06
Packaged: 2017-11-04 22:55:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,846
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/399107
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zauberer_sirin/pseuds/zauberer_sirin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony always needs to come back to Pepper to know he is alive and safe.</p>
            </blockquote>





	if there was one thing I could save from the fire

**Author's Note:**

> title from Richard Siken's poem "Saying your names".

 

 

`What do you have against hospitals?´ Pepper asks, fingers darting across the improvised job of a patch-up on the cut above his eye.

`I have nothing against them. It's just that... hey, _hello_.´

He looks at her. It feels like _years_ since the last time they saw each other. It was a couple of days ago. She looks cool, all dressed-up in her work suit, she looks so clean, and Tony looking like shit. Feeling like shit. His first instinct is a rush of sharp happiness at the sight of her, an inability to see beyond that, to think back on all the things they have to talk about.

He stands like that for a moment, and Pepper lets him, with his hand touching the side of her ear, careful not to disturb her hairdo, not wanting to do more for the moment, just to drink the image of her in front of him, and feel _alive_ – knowing from experience that there's no feeling safe for him until he sees her face.

Then reality pierces.

Tony's eyes darken.

`You've heard about Cou– _about Phil_?´

He has to fight the urge to look away as he says it.

Pepper nods. Tony puts the arm that's hurting the less around her shoulders. She says nothing, just breathes into his shoulder, hiding her face. Tony has a small selfish moment of enjoyment; Pepper is the one usually comforting him, he extracts a little bit of pride from the idea that she _needs him_ some times, now, that she appreciates his hand on the small of her back like this.

`Has anyone told his girlfriend?´ she asks.

`I told Fury to look it up,´ Tony replies. `I don't know... you want me to find out?´

`Yes. I don't know if she knew about his line of work, though...´

 _Perhaps that's better_ , he wonders, knowing the nights of sleep Pepper's been robbed of. Though, personally, Tony wouldn't trade Pepper knowing _everything_ for whatever comfort ignorance might have brought her.

Maybe he is just being selfish again.

 

 

 

 

**[x]**

`Can we have the conversation about you leaving the phone on vibrate again?´

Pepper rolls her yes. `I had been in an important meeting. I forgot to –´

`I was going to die! It would have been nice if I had the chance to say goodbye to –to the woman I– I mean it would be _nice_ is what I'm saying...´

`Are you insane? I'm not going to turn my phone on so you can say goodbye to me before getting yourself killed. That's horrible.´

`At least put it on voice-mail!´

`What?´

`Put it on voice-mail so I can leave a devastatingly touching message on your phone and, _after_ I die heroically, you listen to it over and over again and can never bring yourself to erase it. And you should listen to it, preferably, while smelling some piece of my clothing.´

She stares at him, blank expression except for her wide eyes.

`I think that's the worst thing you have ever said to me. Which is saying something.´

`But–´

`No, no, no. You are not allowed to speak to me in the next fifteen... _years_.´

Her expression doesn't leave room for more jokes right now. Tony shrugs and goes to the drinks cabinet, pours himself half a glass. It's a good thing they have three living rooms in the building – though he misses the balcony, sealed off, risk of collapsing, risk of cutting yourself on the broken shards. He misses the view. For a moment he feels so tired he doesn't think he can lift the glass.

Pepper sits on the couch and looks up at him, seizing him.

`Just out of curiosity,´ she says, calling him to her side, `and I'm not saying that I'm ever _ever_ going to forgive you for what you just said... What would you have told me?´

`What?´

`If I had picked up the phone. What would you have told me in those your dying moments?´

There's an edge of playfulness in her tone. Or perhaps derision. Tony prefers to think it's playfulness.

`Are you fishing for compliments, Miss Potts?´

`No, I'm just curious. You were so eager to speak with me. You are so mad about me not picking up. What were you going to say?´

Tony tilts his head. There's still animosity in her voice and that makes him hesitate. He can always count on Pepper to _listen_ , but sometimes not at the precise moment Tony would like her to.

He goes to her on the sofa and crouches by her side.

`Can I be honest?´ he says, resting his hand on her knee. `I mean, can I cut all the bullshit that is –basically– _me_ and take a shot at a straight, simple answer?´

`Yes.´

`I have no idea.´

`You have no idea? That's your answer? That is devastatingly touching indeed.´

`But it's the truth. I had no idea what I was going to say to you if you picked up that phone. It just seemed like a good idea to call you. Because if I was going to die –and, let's remember this, I was absolutely, one-hundred-per-cent convinced I was going to die, for a moment there– I just... well, I wanted to hear you voice. I guess that's it. I really didn't think further than that.´

She brushes her fingers across his forehead, feels for his scalp, soothing the places where it hurts, where his headache throbs.

`I don't think that would have made a very articulate dying message but... I'll take it,´ she tells him.

`That's not fair, I was under so much pressure. I could do better. Next time I'll do better.´

`Next time?´ Pepper looks adequately horrified. `I'm turning off my phone _forever_.´

 

 

 

 

**[x]**

What he really means to tell her: _next time I'll word it properly_ , the gist of it – how he is never as happy as when he is with her, and that's a shitty thought to have before dying, the shittiest he's ever had, because he didn't used to be this afraid, and now he is terrified of dying, bluffing and covering it well but terrified. This is what she's done to him. She makes bravery difficult, heroism impossible, there's only the coming back to her.

 

 

 

 

**[x]**

She makes him sit on the edge of the bed and helps him get rid of his shirt.

Tony takes this as an advance. `You made a particular promise for when I'd finished homework. Remember? It wasn't very precise, you were going to do something to my brains, wasn't that basically it? Well, you'd better make good on that promise now.´

His voice tries to be light and _come here_ but Pepper can tell it's a struggle.

The desire behind it, however, is accurate: he slips his hands up her hips, under her shirt.

`Tony, you are wounded,´ she stops him.

`What a convenient excuse. Is your word worth nothing?´

She lifts the weight of his hand on her waist.

She finishes undressing him, her eyes skimming over cuts and bruises. The room in half-darkness suddenly fills with blue light. She pushes her hand into the hollow of his shoulder.

`Lie down,´ she says.

The way she says it, Tony has no doubt. Pepper can see the pained smirk as he climbs into their bed. She used to hate his smirk. She really did.

He fixes his body under hers; all these gestures are precise and familiar.

His skin feels hot. Almost too hot. Pepper wonders if it's a fever settling in. Makes plans to keep him inside the house and not-working and under medical attention for the next couple of days. She knows the battle is half lost – Tony will insist on starting with the reconstruction of the tower immediately.

She kisses the curve of his ribcage, watching him wince under her mouth. She knows wounds like this. Previous ones. She knows the shape of them intimately, the print left by an armor weaker than the enemy's will to hurt Tony.

Pepper knows these bones, and she knows the way they break. Both knowledges are inexorably entwined by now. She can differentiate old and new scars.

`Be careful. Will you?´ he asks breathlessly, running one hand through her hair. His voice is sandpapered with fatigue and want. Raw with an openness reserved just for Pepper. Like a twig, like brittle bones, that could snap so easily, only Pepper allowed into this kind of frailty. When she is careful she can be so full of purpose, because only she knows what carelessness could do to Tony.

She kisses him. _I'll be careful_. The hair at the back of his neck is damp with sweat.

`Am I too heavy?´ Pepper asks, kissing the bruises above his collarbone.

`Yes,´ his reply is an indrawn breath.

`Oh?´

He presses his thumb against her temple. `The good kind of heavy.´

She moves slowly. At first she lets her weight do the work. Tony just breathes. She watches him. Then, the slight movement of his hips, his hand across her spine, trailing up and down, brushing her hair off her shoulders. His breathing becoming more and more labored.

Pepper guides his hand between their bodies. She sits up straight. She knows he likes watching her face when she comes.

Afterwards Tony puts his mouth close to her ear.

`I'm really glad I finished homework,´ he whispers, his usual humor back in place.

Worn and mending, he lets his arm fall over her hips. Pepper enjoys the solidity of it (how unlike an imperfect suit of armor, how unlike a farewell message on a phone) and smiles as she waits for Tony to fall asleep first.

 

 

 

 

**[x]**

When he wakes up everything feels hurtful. Everything. The air, the stupid sunlight coming through the windows after Jarvis draws the curtains because _it's well past nine, sir_ (Tony's pretty sure he programmed it to wake him up two hours earlier). Every bone in his body hurts when he tries to sit up on bed. He desists. Immediately. He lies back again and puts his hands behind his head. He closes his eyes. Even his brain feels _sore_.

Pepper is gone, the bed is too big, but he can hear noises around the house, he can smell coffee, he can hear barefoot steps on the floor above.

He tries not to think about work, clean-up, all the broken glass and destroyed furniture. He tries not to think about the death toll, he knows it by heart. With eyes closed he concentrates on the sounds upstairs. He thinks _I'm glad I didn't die_ and though this has been true many times before it's becoming a heavier and heavier truth to carry. And after what has happened (his first thoughts go not to the memory Coulson and all the death, but to Steve, and Bruce, then everything else) it's going to get even heavier – the amount of things and people he needs to come _back to_ every time.

He doesn't mind; he will carry it, it's the good kind of heavy.


End file.
